Graduation
I was too busy
to realise that your graduation
would be mine
That the cap and the gown
the shoes, the dress, the
carefully managed hair and
eyebrows would signal
my own right of passage
I threw my own clothes on
and rushed to your ceremony
I was unaware that the mantle
of my motherhood
was transforming
into a new shape
That as you took those steps
up onto the stage
with the sage of professors
standing in the pomp of their gowns
You were walking out of your childhood
and into the world
You doffed your cap at the Chancellor
a sign of respect
He doffed his back at you
a signal between adults
who have been through a
similar rite of passage
My job is done
The lunches, the toys,
the books, the uniforms,
the grazed knees and the
daily rituals that passed as
slowly as the sun does across
the sky – are gone – funny how we don’t
notice the shifts in the light
until the sun actually goes down.
I will never be a mother again
in the same way that I was before
As I let you become who you need
to be, I have to find my own courage
to be – me – without the definition
of mother of a small child.
To take the risks that I urge you
to take – to live a life –
that is not too small.
© Tanya Southey @ The Poetry of an Ordinary Life
Recent Comments